BIOGRAPHY - Page 6
Before long, Magik made a surprising return with news that Moonstar and Karma were in mortal danger. This news prompted Cannonball to ask Cyclops for permission to form a special strike squad to rescue his imperiled friends. Cyclops approved the request, granting Cannonball a team comprised of Sunspot, Magma and Magik, along with new uniforms and access to the X-Men’s 
quinjet. Cannonball led this team to Colorado to investigate Dani and Shan’s abrupt disappearance. Upon investigating, they discovered the source of their troubles was their old foe Legion, who had also absorbed Karma into his psyche. By the time they found Moonstar, she had been arrested and detained in the town's jail. Because she was depowered, Sam chose to leave Moonstar locked in the jail, ostensibly for her own protection—much to Moonstar's fury. Cannonball's strike squad then went head-to-head with the nigh-omnipotent Legion. Although Sunspot, Cannonball and Moonstar were all seriously injured in the process, Sam's team succeeded in detaining Legion. Still, Sam felt like he had failed, as he believed most of the team disapproved of his performance. Cyclops, however, congratulated Sam on a job well-done: he brought his team home from a dangerous mission alive, and that was all that mattered. [New Mutants (3rd series) #1-4]
Dani Moonstar, however, was less pleased with Cannonball. He found himself at the receiving end of her anger (and her fists) for his paternalistic decision to leave her locked in the jail cell, and again for his decision to not include her on his permanent strike team. After she voiced her complaints, however, Sam understood that he was essentially denying her the right to fight alongside (and die for) her friends. He agreed to place her on his team and promised to start treating her like an equal, despite her no longer having mutant powers. [New Mutants (3rd series) #5]
Sam was unaware that Cyclops was monitoring his team’s leadership abilities in the field to see if any of them could someday replace him as leader of the X-Men. Throughout their various missions, including a battle with the resurrected Hellions and an attempt to apprehend the Savage Land Mutates, Cannonball reliably followed any order Cyclops gave him, oftentimes suppressing his own judgment. Sam’s dependent leadership style was especially apparent when Bastion's anti-mutant forces ambushed the X-Men in an attempt to eliminate the mutant messiah, Hope. Cyclops sent Cannonball’s team on what was essentially a suicide mission to delay Bastion’s subordinates. During their ambush, Karma was critically injured, and later lost her leg. Sam blamed himself for Karma’s injuries, but Cyclops once again reminded him that his team completed a difficult mission with their lives intact. [New Mutants #6-10, Second Coming crossover]
When Bastion's forces began systematically eliminating the X-Men's teleporters, including Magik, who was dragged into Limbo by its arcane residents, Cyclops gave Cannonball permission to lead a rescue squad into Limbo to rescue her. Sam asked Moonstar to remain behind and hold his squad together while he took his ad hoc rescue team into Limbo. His squad included Pixie, the X-Men’s last remaining teleporter, as well as Gambit, Northstar and Dazzler, among others. The situation in Limbo was much worse than anyone anticipated, though, and Cannonball’s squad found itself overpowered by the demonic forces that resided there. Worse, Gambit’s Death persona resurfaced and turned Dazzler and Northstar against their teammates. Sam managed to hold the remnants of his squad together and distract Gambit in combat long enough for Pixie to find and free Magik. Once reunited, Cannonball’s squad returned to Utopia, their perilous mission a success. [X-Men: Hellbound #1-3]
After their pyrrhic victory against Bastion, Cannonball was plagued by doubts about his abilities as a leader. He submitted his mission reports to Cyclops with the suggestion that he be replaced as team leader. Instead, Cyclops ordered him to take a vacation with his team and repair the unrest he thought he had sewn amongst his friends. Retreating to an isolated cabin in Texas with nothing 
but some food, beer and each other's company, Sam and his team took a much-needed break. The more they drank, the wilder their behavior grew, culminating for Sam and Dani in a kiss — purely for observational purposes, of course. [New Mutants (3rd series) #15]
Their fun was put on hold, however, when Magik abruptly shunted the entire team into Limbo to stop a squad of renegade U.S. soldiers from unleashing the Elder Gods, who had the power to destroy the world. After a grueling, weeks-long trek through Limbo, Cannonball and the rest of the team were bested and taken prisoner by a team of hardened, Limbo-raised mutants—the very same mutant children Sam and the New Mutants had helped save from demonic sacrifice during the “Inferno” crisis years earlier. It seemed these Inferno babies had been subsequently recaptured and taken to Limbo, where they were raised as battle-hardened mutant soldiers. Despite their experience, Cannonball’s team was taken off-guard and swiftly defeated. While in prison, their captors were merciless. The Inferno Children even forced Sam to listen while they 
tortured Dani, for whom they knew he had romantic feelings.
Eventually, Karma managed to break her teammates free, and they retaliated. Sam personally hunted down the surviving Inferno Children as they fled on a train and destroyed their vehicle with a head-on collision, ending their lives. He was so haunted by what he had done that later, when Dani asked what had happened, he could not even look her in the eye. [New Mutants (3rd series) #16-21]
Sam was understandably a little shell-shocked after being imprisoned in Limbo, hearing his love-interest tortured and being pushed to the point of killing multiple people. To make matters worse, soon after returning from Limbo, reality was warped into the dystopic Age of X. In this reality, Sam's entire family—except for his sister Paige—had been killed by anti-mutant forces, while the world's remaining mutants had been corralled into a single stronghold that was constantly under attack. There was little hope in this twisted alternate reality and, when it was eventually undone, Sam chose to have his memories of that distorted world expunged, although he retained the knowledge that reality had somehow been distorted. [Age of X crossover, X-Men: Legacy (1st series) #248]
At this point, Sam’s mental trauma and multiple perceived failures led him to resign as leader of his strike squad. He voluntarily submitted himself for psychiatric observation on Utopia. During this time, Dani called in an old friend of hers named Gus Grim, a social worker from her Cheyenne reservation, to provide some counseling for the team. When Sam spoke with Gus, he was outraged to hear the man accuse him of being a coward who quit his role as team leader because he was afraid of failure—in part because the observation rang true. [New Mutants (3rd series) #28]
After the schism between Cyclops and Wolverine, Sam chose to part ways with Cyclops and his former New Mutants teammates and join Wolverine in Westchester at the Jean Grey School for Gifted Youngsters, citing his psychological issues—and occasional blackouts—as his reasons for leaving. Although this meant separating from Dani Moonstar just as their romance was flourishing, it did give him the opportunity to spend more time with his sister Paige, whose increasingly erratic behavior began to worry him. At the Jean Grey School, Sam served as a Junior Staff Member and taught classes like “Ethics 101” and “Flying Into Things Headfirst.” Additionally, he got to live, work and fight alongside his old strike leader Rogue. [New Mutants (3rd series) #33, X-Men: Regenesis #1, X-Men: Legacy (1st series) #260.1, 261-267]
When his old teammates visited the Jean Grey School with some questions for Karma, Sam sensed that Dani’s feelings for her new teammate Nate Grey went beyond platonic. Sam wasn’t 
angry with her, though, and instead calmly asked her about it. Moments after their conversation began, however, Cannonball was plucked from the timestream by a mysterious force. [New Mutants (3rd series) #44]
Cannonball eventually returned to his rightful time and helped his old teammates overcome the villain at the root of their problems. Afterward, Sam joined them for a celebratory barbecue at their home in Sam Francisco, at which point he finally addressed the awkwardness stirring between himself and Dani. Always a gentleman, Sam respected Dani’s choice of romantic partners and chose to give her space. In response, Dani emphasized how much Sam’s friendship meant to her, and assured him they would be friends forever. [New Mutants (3rd series) #50]